Children are more vulnerable to media images because they lack real world experience and therefore lack the necessary basis for comparison. What is disturbing is the empirical data which confirms that black children use television to acquire values, beliefs, concepts, attitudes, and basic socialization patterns.
. . . [S]ocial scientists have found that the exclusion of Blacks from television is destructive to Black childrens self-concept because it minimizes the importance of their existence.
Moreover, television has been identified as the primary contributor to negative stereotypes.
Patricia M. Worthy, Diversity and Minority Stereotyping in the Television Media: The Unsettled First Amendment Issue, 18 Hastings Comm. & Ent. L.J. 509, 53435 (1996) (stating that the prevalence of whites in the media allows whites to experience their identity not merely as self-same but as diverse) (citations omitted). Further studies indicate the specific impact of media imagery on minority children. See, e.g., Virginia Mansfield-Richardson, Asian Americans and the Mass Media: A Content Analysis of Twenty United States Newspapers and a Survey of Asian American Journalists 79 (2000) (citing a 1988 study that found television plays a role in shaping ethnic images for some ethnic minorities, but not for others); Clint C. Wilson II & Félix Gutiérrez, Minorities and Media: Diversity and the End of Mass Communication 5153 (1985) (discussing several studies demonstrating that media portrayals may have a greater influence on the development of minority children than on White children).
[G]ive vivid concrete embodiment to some of the intangible beliefs of our culture. For example, much of the prime time programming presents drama and comedy against a background of luxury and wealth, re-enforcing the belief that more is better. These images thus provide a basis for a knowledge of our beliefs and motivation to implement those beliefs.
Id. at 5.
Television bosses have apparently decided that the least offensive combination of anchoring talentat least in the incredibly diverse Bay Areais a white man with a woman, white or Asian usually. Its a cozy, non-threatening combination. Asian women are seen as exotic, or as objects of libidinous desires . . . [whereas] Asian men . . . [are] threatening or, worse . . . non-entities.
Wong, supra note 56, at 228. Asian-American talk show hosts are also virtually nonexistent. See NBC News on Cable 24/7, Lisa Ling: Host, National Geographic Ultimate Explorer, ¶ 15, at http://www.msnbc.com/news/910546.asp (last visited Nov. 20, 2003). With the exception of Lisa Ling, who co-hosted ABCs The View before departing to host travelogue National Geographic Ultimate Explorer, few other nationally known Asian-American talk show hosts can be identified. Id. Only two Asian Americans come to mind: Julie Chen, a Chinese-American CBS anchorwoman and host of reality TV show Big Brother, and Dean Cain, a quarter-Japanese actor, host of Ripleys Believe It Or Not. See Goldsea Asian Am. Supersite, Julie Chen to Host CBSs Big Brother, ¶ 1 (June 22, 2000), at http://goldsea.com/Personalities/00/chenj.html; Internet Movie Database, Biography for Dean Cain, at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001002/bio (last visited Nov. 20, 2003); Ripleys Believe It or Not!, About the Show, ¶ 1, at http://www.sonypictures.com/tv/shows /ripleys/about. html (last visited Nov. 20, 2003). Minority youth learn what they cannot achieve in life via media images, so this lack of prominent Asian-American media figures may weaken greatly their ambitions. See Mansfield-Richardson, supra note 18, at 81. Mansfield-Richardsons research asserts that the media greatly influences Asian Americans perception of their own place within a society, and the value that society places on them as a minority. Id. at 233.
[T]elevision is so pervasive [that] it is very difficult for viewers to prevent negative stereotypes from entering their homes . . . . [Y]oung children identify with television characters of their race. In addition, white children often have very little exposure to people of color except through what they seen on television. What is portrayed on television is critically important to . . . the concept of group identity.
Baynes, supra note 65, at 367.